hflavo

I am now semi-retired and, while I have never completely lost my interest in photography, now have the time and freedom from child-raising and business career to concentrate on becoming a better-than-just-good photographer.

My photo equipment has evolved from Minolta rangefinders to Canon SLR's to Nikon Digital SLRs over the years. Present line-up is as follows:

* Canon 520 4.0mp digital (my grab camera, always in the car with me)* Nikon D5100 w/Nikon 18-105mm and Nikon 70-300VR as my main walkaround kit.* Nikon D300 and D7000 w/Tamron 17-50 f2.8 and Nikon 80-200 f2.8 plus a bunch of primes as my main sports and photojournalism setup* Nikon D600, my newest acquisition. Mostly for use with my set of manual prime lenses.* Nikon D1H w/various of the above Nikon lenses....still a great sports camera and used as a second camera for when shooting sports.* Nikon D1X w/various of the above lenses ... as a creative backup to the D300 and D7000.

Currently I shoot raw except for sports, and import using Nikon Transfer, sort and label with Photo Mechanic, and edit using CaptureNX/NX2. Arcserve PhotoImpressions 6 is used for retouching TIFF files, which are my finished masters. ResizeIt gets used for upsizing. I also use DxO on occasion, particularly to batch-process sports JPEGs. I'v also invested in their Viewpoint and Filmpack, which are useful on occasion.

My editing is done on an HP Quad Workstation, and viewed on a 22' LCD screen calibrated by a Spyder2Express. Printing is usually sent away but occasionally done via an Epson CX8400.

In addition to the equipment listed iabove, I currently have an unused extra large Domke bag with a Canon FD28/2.0 lens and a Kiron FD28-70/3.5-4.5 lens awaiting disposal or recycling, but I seem to have lost my interest in film photography (I was never a darkroom guy, and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with about 2000 slides and 800 prints from the old days).